1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooling apparatus. In particular, this invention relates to a cooling apparatus that is installed on an electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The circuit board of an electronic device has a variety of electronic elements, such as a central processing unit (CPU). As the electronic industry has been developed, the operation speed of CPUs rapidly increases and thus the heat generated by CPUs also increases. Because electronic devices are generally enclosed by a housing, the temperature inside the housing rises substantially. Therefore, a cooling apparatus is required for the electronic elements in order to make the electronic device operate normally.
A variety of cooling apparatuses are developed for electronic elements. For example, Taiwan patent No. M288399 discloses a cooling apparatus. The cooling apparatus includes a cooling module, a plurality of heat pipes, a heat-absorbing module, a jig and a fastening module. The cooling module is made of a plurality of cooling fins that are disposed in parallel. One end of each of the heat pipes is assembled with the cooling module, and the second end of the heat pipe is located in the heat-absorbing module. The jig fastens onto the outer side of a heat-generating part (an electronic element) and the heat-absorbing module. The fastening module is installed between the heat-generating part and the heat-absorbing module for fastening the heat-generating part to the heat-absorbing module. Furthermore, the heat-absorbing module is welded to the heat pipes.
Although the cooling apparatus of the prior art can dissipate heat generated by the electronic elements, the heat-absorbing module still needs to be welded to the heat pipes. When the cooling apparatus is assembled with the electronic device, the assembler needs to weld the heat-absorbing module to the heat pipes and then assemble the other parts onto the electronic device. Therefore, the assembler needs to be skilled in the art of welding. Furthermore, it is inconvenient for the assembler.
Moreover, because the welding process is a lead soldering process, the soldering material contains lead. Recently, lead has been forbidden in electronic devices by the Europe Union. In order to meet the requirement for a lead-free manufacturing process, a new apparatus manufactured without lead is required.